My Hungarian Horntail
by Child of the Muse
Summary: Written for the Quidditch Fanfiction Competition: "As children we were starved, abused, neglected, hated, and taken on with much regret. As teens we showed off what made us special and clung to it like a life raft. As adults, we stand alone, on our own, against a world that will never understand us...one that will never even try… And we are not entirely sure we want them to."


**A/N: I would be happy to turn this into a full length story but I would have to have someone to co-write it with me. Let me know if your interested! I've already got most of it written in my head :D Otherwise, have fun reading this!**

Words: 2,998

Title/Link: My Hungarian Horntail

Team: Pride of Portree

Position: Chaser 1

Prompts: Disaster, Confused, Wide Awake – Katy Perry

Beginning/End Word: Harry

* * *

Harry, I'm wide awake and I can see you sleeping peacefully in my shadow in the dark, not losing any sleep. Such a _wild_creature you are. Untamed in your fury, in your fire, in your passion. If I am more of a king cobra than a man, you are surely more of a dragon than a boy, my own fire breathing Hungarian Horntail.

That first task was surely a fitting adversary for one so fiery, so violent, so protective as you. A perfect match, and you were the victor.

I see now that you will _always_ be the victor.

This has never been clearer to me than when you took up my side, against your..._friends_...and the Order members, verbally defending my person and our relationship like the dragon you are.

Your words pierced through them like a horned spike. Your tone was a constantly spitting force of flame as you cut them down in your raging righteous defense of me.

But you did not defend my actions. No, you never do anything I expect. Instead, you shocked me by sorrowfully and angrily (on my behalf) explaining the circumstances which led up to the actions which I took.

You explained how you went back into the past to heal me of a potion which induced sociopathic tendencies when conceived by it: amortentia. You knocked me out and you poured the potion down my throat. We became enemies, we became friends, we became fascinated with the other, we looked for a way to get you back to nineteen ninety-four, we made love, we fought, we attended each others detentions, always together, you took a curse for me, and you ritualistically bonded with me: core, blood, body, bone, magic, mind, and soul.

You were the only one to accept me. You were and still are my only human friend.

And then, in a very Slytherin fashion, you took them all down, hook line and sinker, so to speak, when you explained that you had lived the same way I had...unloved, craving attention, starved, neglected, taken in regretfully, and hated by your 'family'. You were even called 'freak' as I was. You wore others resentment on your person like a second skin, as I did. You are as used to it as I am.

The only difference between us is that for that first year of your life, you had acceptance. You had love. You had friendship. You had one year of family. You had and have more hope than I could ever dream. I had nothing from the very beginning.

I was abandoned, shunned, and hated, _especially_ by my own family. My own mother did not care enough to save herself to raise me. She died giving birth to me, though it was within her power to save herself. I had tried to reach out for friends, despite my potion induced mental state, but was forced by the caretakers to leave the other children alone because I was a 'freak'.

And when Albus Dumbledore, the man who could have changed everything, found me, he shunned me as well, simply because I had a darker outlook on life. Everyone shunned me. Everyone was weary of me. Everyone but you.

In this way, I learned to be forever alone, as you did.

And to this day, you still have never let anyone in completely.

No one but myself.

Unlike the way you treat your friends, to me you speak your mind immediately. At times, this can be a very amusing thing to witness, with your slight random streak and your more than interesting viewpoints.

You reveal to me all your fantasies, all your doubts, all your secrets, all your fears, all your wants. You reveal to your friends that it takes you weeks, at times, even months before you can tell them anything at all, even if its slight. And now they know, as I have for a long time, that a part of you is scared to open up to them because there are times when they don't accept what you have to tell them. There are times when they don't accept _you_.

But I do. I always do. And now they know this as well.

They know that we are the same. As children we were starved, abused, neglected, hated, and taken on with much regret. As teens we showed off what made us special and clung to it like a life raft. As adults, we stand alone, on our own, against a world that will never understand us...one that will never even try.

And we are not entirely sure we want them to. After all, this is between us and only us. We are special to each other being that we are the only remaining descendants of the founders. And who else could possibly understand that?

By the time you revealed this, the order was breathless and stunned. Shell shocked, even. And when you threatened to leave them all behind for me...the deafening silence became so thick, you had to wonder if these half-witted idiots even continued to breathe. You could hear a feather quill drop, it was so quiet.

You explained you would not leave me behind and you would not abandon me like I had been abandoned so many times before. You claimed...

You claimed you would love me until the day I died and that when I did, you would take your own life, because you could not bear to live without me.

And for the first time, I understood how you could face death so easily. Surely, if you were waiting on the other side, I would find my death just as quickly as I could destroy every last horcrux. For now that I know, for the first time in fifty years, what joy feels like, I am not sure I could part with it. And you, Harry, are my joy.

You are my life.

I find it so interesting how everyone has always misunderstood when I say I fear death. They do not know our past. They do not know that I spent forty years as a madman. They do not know that I lived for forty years thinking you were dead. They do not know that Albus Dumbledore cast the killing curse upon you just as you disappeared into the future.

No, I do not fear dying. It is your death, that I fear even now, even having lived it everyday. It is the thought of your death that shakes me to my core. Because there is nothing worse than death, than having you separated from me forever. I will never allow it again.

I will kill Albus Dumbledore for this...eventually. It is laughable that they think I fear him. _No,_ he is not the only one I ever feared. He is the only one I ever truly hated.

Albeit, he thought you were about to become a hybrid human/inferius- dementor capable of taking out the entire school, all because of a few simple runes he read wrong when he found the evidence of our bonding ritual. But it does not matter to me what he thought. I do not forgive him for nearly killing you.

I never will.

To this day, I am not sure what amazes me more. The fact that you are fond enough of me to die to be with me, if that is what it took...or that you said all this without even knowing I was in the room. You stood by me, even whilst thinking you were standing alone.

You truly are Gryffindorishly loyal.

And in the final silence that reigned after you concluded your defense, there was not one word to be said of what was between us. The Order was in shock and searched silently and futilely for words. But what could they say?

You were determined to be mine. And they would never have a chance of stopping either of us. My power combined with your will is an almost frightening thing to think of.

And then I did something in that moment that I have never come to regret, no matter how public a declaration it may have been. I kissed you, as you had unknowingly been begging me the moment you began to speak of me. I kissed you in front of your friends, in front of the members of the Order of the Phoenix, in front of those who had become your family. I left you breath taken, the way you always look the most beautiful to me.

I could not help but find it amusing that you had defended me with such zest. And it was when I'd whispered in parseltongue that I'd heard your amazing argument of my case, that your blush finally set me laughing. Of everything that could have made you blush, it was _that._

You are truly unpredictable.

In the end, when the Order of the Phoenix and my Deatheaters faced a common enemy, it was you who pushed the order to go through with this contract. It was you who refused to back down, refused to fear me, refused to cow to my wishes. I was both equally annoyed and impressed. You are a fine leader, Harry.

And because of this quality you possess, it has always been you who saw the best in me...the best that no one, not my Deatheaters, not your friends, not even Dumbledore himself, saw.

But you did.

And for this, it was _I_ who protected _you_, named you my consort, and made many personal demands on your behalf. You were never to step foot on the Dursley's doorstep again, no longer were you to spend your night in Gryffindor Tower but with me (and it goes without saying, within my bed), you were to come home to me on the weekends, you were to spend your holidays and summers with myself...not that you complained. If I remember you were rather...overly eager, shall we say, to comply with the contract. You all but demanded I take you with me that very day.

Who was I to refuse you?

So through many a word and clause, I protected you from the Order. But you were the one who helped me narrowly avoid disaster. You were the one who came out ripping, tearing, killing, and spitting mad fire in an effort to save me when I was captured, weakened and magicless, by the Ministry of Magic. The fault of the Order, we both knew, however 'accidentally' they claimed.

To this day, the ministry never _did_ find out who exactly it was that cared enough about me to rescue me from the dementors kiss. I ponder what their reactions will be when they realize it was you all along. And even now, months later, I still laugh as I remember you ripping the dementor apart with your bare hands for 'trying to kiss your man', as you phrased it.

I had never known you were so _possessive, _Harry.

But despite you in all your wildness, you are gentle when you willingly come to me. You mold yourself to my skeletal form volitionally, saying it is comfortable. You claim it is the only way you can sleep. And I believe you.

After all, it has been reported to me that you face many bouts of incurable insomnia, your walking the corridors and grounds at night are proof of that.

It comforts me to know that only I know what type of sleepless torment ails you and _why_. And only _I_ can heal you. Only _I_ can assure you desire most: peace, my true reason for the clauses in the contract that demand your presence in my home, in my bed, and by my side whenever possible.

So, as per the agreement, I came to bring you home to sleep peacefully. And as I waited at the gates of Hogwarts, you came out smiling...no...you were beaming, you lighted up like a firework as you looked upon my terrifying face freely. And then you were crushing me, to what must surely be my death...and yet somehow I found (and find) myself not minding.

I was once confused as to why my instincts did not assess you as a threat when you did this, crushed me this way. But I understand now, even that more instinctual, cobra-like part of myself, understands. You need me. All of me.

And so I took you in my arms and crushed you back...although a bit more gently. Being risen using the muscular strength of a reticulated python requires I show care when handling you. Luckily for me, you are beautifully athletic.

You affirm your need for me as we stumble through the door and onto the couch. You caress my jaw, my cheekbones, my lips, my forked tongue, my collar bones, and my hands, innocently almost, but passionately. You have told me many times that you are obsessed with me, though I do not see the resemblance between the actions of yourself verses Bellatrix Lestrange at all. Perhaps it is an obsession of a different sort...or perhaps you are not quite as mad as she, but you are indeed, a bit mad.

For I have offered many a time in the past to change my form to that of the old Tom Riddle. The one with creamy pale skin, dark grey eyes, wavy locks of black hair. The handsome fellow. It is easily within my power to do so. But what others would consider a dream is your worst nightmare and it is a testament to who you are that you prefer me as I am...but more so, it is a testament that you find me handsome like this. That you tell me I am beautiful like this..._especially_ like this, even.

And then you smile and you laugh. When you laugh, your eyes light up like emeralds with that special hidden power underneath that is completely yours. You enrapture me. You tell me you are not afraid to look into my eyes and you stare into them as deeply as I stare into your golden soul. You once again tell me I am beautiful.

Do you lie? Do you use me? Do you seek my favor? Do you envy my power?

Yes, you seek favor. But not that of a servant from a king. No, you merely wish for my approval, being denied all forms of any kind of acceptance in your younger years. And I understand this, as I too sought endorsement, being denied it as well. We are so alike! And yet...

I can see the unquestionable confidence that is your..._our_ truth shining from your eyes. I can feel the simple reverence in every caressing sweet touch. I feel your marvel of my power, but only in so fact that it makes me more..._seductive_ to you. It is a word I admit I am not used to using.

And now, the form that most have found disgusting, putrid, an abomination, is your salvation, your beauty, your greatest work of art. And as you meld me to your mind, as close as I meld you to my body, I begin to see the way you see me.

And, I, Lord Voldemort, murderer of thousands, advanced magician, is willingly entrapped within your embrace...your emotion. I, who has tested magic beyond the limits of what shall ever be known, I, the greatest sorcerer who will ever live...I am taken in by you. By, not the boy who lived, the boy who refused to die, the talented quidditch player, the talented defense student...no. I am taken in simply by 'just Harry' for that is enough. _You_ are enough.

It is times like these that I wonder how I did not see. I wonder how I did not read the signs. How could I have been so blind? For it is surely clear to me now that not all is as it once was...or as it never was. It is as if I have woken from a dream.

Our wands are brothers and will not fight against the other. We are soul mates. We are twin flames. We are meant to be. We looked alike, we think alike at times, we fight alike, even. Not in style, but in the small twitches of magic that mirror the other. And if I had known than what I know now, I wouldn't have hunted you down.

Reality hurts.

But you made it hurt oh so sweetly.

And so I let go. I gave in. And in doing so, I gained you. All of you, in all your innocently sweet and yet somehow sinful perfection. And now, here I lay with you, falling from cloud nine, once again.

Because of you, I use nature not as a get away, but as a holiday retreat, as relaxation. Because of you, I no longer freeze to death in the cold of the water, as your unnatural blazing heat keeps me warm. Because of you, I need nothing to complete myself, for you alone complete me.

Because of my memories of you, I am finally able to cast a patronus.

And so, from the lion's den, I am born again. A serpent lord all the same, but gently wrapped around my roaring and hissing lion. My Slytherinesque-Gryffindor.

I'm wide awake and I am not blind anymore. My eyes are open to you and only you are my sweetest poison.

"Mmmm, you think too much. Go d'Sleep."

Your arms wrap around me and I am home again, crushed against you. Surely there can be no greater paradise.

"I love you, V."

And that...pet name, the name I very specifically at one point threatened to set you on fire for calling me, I have come to accept. For it is you. It is always you.

"My beautiful Martyr...

_**...my sweet Harry."**_


End file.
